FRANCO'S RESTAURANT & CATERING

Address: 3300 Dixie HighwayTelephone: (502) 448-8044Cuisine: Home cooking.Alcohol: None.Vegetarian: Few options; most vegetable dishes are seasoned with meat; a few salads, sides and desserts are not.Price range: Inexpensive; entrees with two sides are less than $10; sandwiches are less than $5; two persons could easily dine for well under $20. Reservations: No.Credit cards: AE, D, MC, V.Children's menu: Yes.Smoking: No.Access: The restaurant appears to be fully accessible for people using wheelchairs.Hours: Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Saturday, noon-8 p.m.; Sunday, noon-7 p.m.

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For more than 30 years, the old Jay's Cafeteria was one of the most prominent social and political institutions in western Louisville (not to mention, one of the best places in town to dine on home-cooked Southern-style food).

Frank Foster opened Jay's in 1974 and operated it until 2005, when it was auctioned off in bankruptcy proceedings. Two churches operated the business until it quietly faded away sometime later, leaving a significant gap in the Louisville dining scene, where it's become way easier to find a piece of pan-seared tuna than a decent bowl of collard greens.

About a year-and-a-half ago, Frank Foster's son, Domanic, decided to fill that gap by opening Franco's Restaurant & Catering. It's a spirited little cafeteria, where long queues assemble in search of beans and greens, ribs and kraut, pig's feet and deviled eggs.

The interior is a welcoming mix of pink and turquoise; walls are hung with vintage photos of Louisville scenes and luminaries (including plenty of shots taken at the old Jay's). Classic jazz plays in the background.

Every table is supplied with a cruet of vinegar and a big jar of hot sauce. And service is about as down-home friendly as it gets.

Most of the food comes right from the steam table, but if you order something that needs to be cooked to order (like fried flounder or perch in a crisp breading visibly flecked with a hefty dose of pepper), it'll find its way to your table still piping hot from the kitchen.

The menu is posted on the wall behind the serving line, and is utterly bereft of double figures: There's not a single item on that menu that will set you back $10 -- and portions are scaled to satisfy the appetites of longshoremen and stevedores.

Generous entrees come with two hefty sides -- tangy, mustard-laden potato salad, a cooling dish of macaroni salad, a cereal-bowl full of soupy, smoky pinto beans seasoned with plenty of pork, or a ravishing bowl of long-simmered greens in one of those subtle broths that make you wonder why you hated greens when you were a kid (well, it makes me wonder that, anyway).

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It happens that I never did hate pork chops, and Franco's version pretty much explains why. They're a bit too fatty to comply with the latest in nutritional advice. And I'm reasonably sure that most nutritionists, if asked about a recipe that calls for breading pork chops, then frying them, then sluicing them with thick brown gravy, would disapprove -- at least in theory. But the reality is pretty darned tempting.

The reality of the Franco's fried chicken is good as well; the breading has a thick, salt-and-pepper crunch. And the rotating list of daily specials is one of those things that lots of customers will factor into their lunch schedule: Salisbury steak on Wednesday (get there early, or it'll be gone); meatloaf and liver and onions on Monday; chicken and dumplings on Tuesday; chicken and dressing on Wednesday; pig feet (and ribs and Salisbury steak) on Saturday. And no matter what day of the week you go, you'll find bright yellow, fine-grained cornmeal muffins that are light and fluffy -- but none too sweet.

And unless you wait until the very end of the day, you should find plenty of juicy cobbler bubbling away in the steam table. If the blackberry is all gone, or the cherry, you could do much worse than to indulge in a bowl of the peach, which gives off the alluring scent of nutmeg and will send you out into the world as happy and content as can be.